History of Cannabis

A Brief History of Cannabis

It may seem as if the global drug war has been around forever, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, on the timeline of humanity’s long relationship with cannabis, the prohibition which is just now coming to an end barely registers so much as a blip. If the known history of human cannabis cultivation were mapped out along the length of a football field, the period in which cannabis was legal in every country of the world would span almost completely from one end zone to the other; the entire history of cannabis prohibition, meanwhile, would take up less than one inch of the final yard. Here are some of the highlights:

c. 8,000 BCE: The date, according to carbon dating, of the earliest known human use of cannabis – hemp rope used in ceremonial burial on the island now known as Taiwan.

c. 2,700 BCE: The year when, by tradition, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung first discovered the medical benefits of cannabis.

c. 150 CE: The Roman physician Galen, whose writings would become a mainstay of European medicine for over a millennium, recommends medical marijuana for a variety of ailments.

c. 1400 CE: European kingdoms co-opt Muslim sailing innovations — including the use of hemp sails — which allow them to build global trading empires.

1456 CE: First Gutenberg Bible printed on hemp paper

1530 CE: Pedro Quadrado sows earliest known North American hemp crop in New Spain